Any man would be wrong

I bought a set of patio furniture at a garage sale on Saturday. It's nothing special. I only paid $25 for 4 pieces. But they're sturdy, light weight, and wooden. In the process of getting them home, we discovered that the red "finish" was coming off on everything it touched. J got all uppity about it messing up the inside of his car (which cleaned up easily, there was no need to stress)...

J: This is terrible. You should just call it a loss and trash them.
Me: No, it'll be easy enough to put a new finish on them.
J: You'll have to take the old finish off.
Me: Yeah.
J: That's gonna be a mess. Make sure to get a face mask so that you're not inhaling all that dust.
Me: Dust? I'm going to scrub them with a stiff brush and laundry detergent. It'll come right off.
J: No it won't.
Me: Yes it will.
J: Any man will tell you that you're going to have to sand that paint off.

I decided to look past the "any man" part and pretend that what he'd actually said to me was that anyone who knows what they're talking about would tell me that the way to remove paint is to sand it off. And he'd probably be right, except that there were several flaws in his reasoning:

1) It's not paint. It's stain that was applied badly. The stuff on the outside is coming off because it wasn't wiped off properly when it was first applied.
2) I know exactly what I'm talking about.

My parents' deck does not look as nice as it does 20 years after we finished building it because it's anything special. It looks like it does because every year or two, somebody goes out there and scrubs the thing down with Tide with bleach then puts a coat of deck sealer on it. When I was a kid I helped. When I was about 12, it became my job because it actually had most of the characteristics of a household chore that I'd do without much complaint. It was outside and by myself. And so, I know exactly what to do with wood (pun not intended, but enjoyed nonetheless).

So far, I've scrubbed down 3 of the 4 pieces to reveal a lovely blond wood under all the red gunk. I wish my camera was working so that I could show off. They're going to look fantastic under our tree in a couple of weeks if I can just get a couple of rainless days in a row for them to dry before I apply the sealant. And to his credit, the boy has admitted that he was wrong to doubt my abilities and that he should have learned that lesson two weeks ago when I magically removed lots of ink stains from his pants with hairspray.